Control Master Software is supplied free with any
purchase of a board from the Control Master range. It consists of two
parts. The first is a “ready to run” Windows application that allows the
user to access all of the facilities on all of the connected boards. It
provides manual control for all of the outputs whatever type they are
(simple digital, relay, motor speed and direction etc..) and a display
of the current state of the inputs (digital, analogue etc…).

The second is a DLL function library to provide the
programmer with an easy to use interface to all of Control Master
facilities. The DLL provides functions which allow the programmer to
ignore all of the complexities of USB communications and RS485 serial
communications and just specify what they want a particular output to do
on a specific board as well as read the current state of any input on
any board. All software is compatible with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7,
8 and 10

Control Master is divided into separate pages which
correspond to each type of slave board currently available within the
Control master range. i.e. there is a separate page for the Digital I/O
Slave, the Analogue I/O Slave, Motor Slave etc… As more slave board
types are added to the range a new page will be added. In this way
backward compatibility will be maintained with existing slave board
types within Control Master.

These pages are accessed simply by clicking on the
“Tab” at the top of each page. However, the first page you see when you
start the application is slightly different. It is a summary page which
allows you to see which Slave boards are currently connected to your
system and what Board Number they have been set to. Clicking on the
“Scan” button will cause the program to search through all available
board number slots (1 to 30) and establish communication with any board
present. It takes a few seconds and you will see a list of the attached
boards. The scan will also reveal what type of Master Controller you
have connected to your USB port (i.e. Isolated or Non-Isolated). If no
Master is detected then, obviously, no slaves will be detected and you
should check you connection of the Master to the USB port and the
installation of its drivers.

Based on what board types you have connected to your
system (revealed by the scan) you should then go to the page for that
type of board. It should be noted that it does not matter how many of
each type of board you have connected, you will still be able to access
all boards connected to the system of a given type from the same page.
In fact, you could have a system with 30 boards of the same type. In
that case you would only use the one page for all of your boards.

Next to every input and output control on every board
page there is a box for a “Description”. This is intended to allow you
to customise Control Master for your own particular application. They
are simple text entry boxes which automatically retain the information
you type into them even after a program restart. For example: You may be
using a Digital I/O Slave to control two DC motors, a solenoid and three
indicator lamps on the first 6 outputs. The description next to these
could be…

This makes your control system much more accessible to
understanding. It is also possible to add descriptive text to the list
of boards found on the scan page. Here you can enter descriptions
meaningful to you about each board. For example you could add a
description showing the location of each board. “Workshop 1”, “Garage”,
“Greenhouse”, “Camera1 Tilt and Swivel” etc… etc… Again these
descriptions, once entered, are automatically saved when you exit the
program and automatically restored on restart. For full details of the
Control Master software and all of the boards in the range you should
refer to the Control Master Manual which can be downloaded as a pdf file
using the link below.....

(Note: This is not a "kit of parts" , it is fully assembled and tested)

Compatible with Windows XP,
Vista and Windows 7,8 and 10

To download a copy of the user
manual for this board, right click on the link on the
right and choose "save target as". This will allow you to
download a PDF copy of the manual

Manual

You will need Adobe
Reader installed on your PC to read this document. Adobe reader
is available for free download from Adobe using the link to the
right..

A sample program showing how to control a Motor Slave may be downloaded
using the link on the right. Right click on the link and choose "save target as".
This example may be used as a template for all other "slaves" in the
range simply by substituting the appropriate functions for the boards
being used.